Youth vote on the rise

They are among the most sought-after, if elusive, target of any campaign. Their very presence can fire up even the most staid candidates.

In South Florida, young voters are awakening to the power they could wield in determining the next president.

The Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary saw record-breaking turnouts among voters between the ages of 18 and 29. Local student leaders are bracing for similar turnouts in Florida's primary Jan. 29.

"There's more interest on campuses here, though not necessarily political activity," said Josef Palermo, 23, who talks to classes at Florida Atlantic University about the importance of registering to vote. He spent winter break working in New Hampshire for Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

A youth voting surge in Florida would hasten a trend that's been building over the past several elections. The 2004 presidential election drew the highest level of national youth voter turnout in more than a decade. In Florida, 49 percent of those 18- to 29-year-olds eligible to vote went to the polls, up from 40 percent in the 2000 presidential election. Florida ranked 28th among the states in terms of youth voter turnout.

Youth registration drives have picked up since then. In Palm Beach County, the Supervisor of Elections' IVote push has registered almost 12,000 high school seniors since May 2005. New Voters Project, one of many nonpartisan groups dedicated to registering new young voters, teamed with officials at Broward Community College, Palm Beach Community College and Florida International University to sign up more than 2,000.

In Broward and Palm Beach counties, 18- to 29-year-olds make up 15 percent and 13 percent of registered voters, respectively.

"The youth factor could be one of the most decisive elements of this year," said Sujatha Jahagirdar, 31, director of the project. "Whether it's the Republicans or Democrats, whoever eventually wins is going to need a big chunk of the youth vote."

"I think that the Internet has helped educate students in a broader sense," said Palermo, a senior communications major. "There are more high schoolers raising questions on the issues than I've ever seen before. I mean, when I went to high school that just wasn't happening."

At Florida Atlantic University, student leaders are organizing mock debates, get-out-the-vote forums and position papers in preparation for the presidential debates there on Jan. 24 and possibly Jan. 27.

At Nova Southeastern University, students organized voter registration programs called "Step It Up" and built awareness on the backs of other activism, such as the Save Darfur coalition. Similar activities are launched at community colleges in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.

The surge in youth voting has led some experts to predict that the huge demographic bubble known as Generations X and Y might be a formidable force in the 2008 elections.

But other pundits note that young people are easily distracted, transient and fickle in their allegiances. History shows that building a campaign on the backs of 20-somethings has failed candidates from George McGovern to Howard Dean.

The task of mobilizing youth is especially complex in South Florida, where a multicultural generation spans the political spectrum. They are savvy about salesmanship, branding and other aspects of modern political marketing.

"Our generation is a hard target audience for any campaign," said Chloe Dolandis, 22, who recently graduated from Florida Atlantic University with an arts degree. So far, she's supported Kucinich by handing out fliers and attending rallies.

"We're just so saturated with stuff, every form of information and entertainment you can imagine. So people can pick and choose what they want to be involved in, and political activity is just one more thing competing for attention."

Many among the new generation of local campus leaders are first-generation Americans whose parents sacrificed and suffered to flee countries from Cuba to Uganda. That makes immigration an important issue among these students, many of whom are mixed-race.

"I'm really for making it easier for immigrants to come to this country," said Sharein El-Tourky, 19, a Nova student whose father is a Coptic Christian from Egypt. "That may mean tightening the borders, but it should be easier for people who want to come here and contribute. And it should be easier for people who have lived and worked here for 30 years, whose children are citizens, to have the right to stay.

"This country was built on the back of immigrants."

At Nova Southeastern University, many of Patrick Cao's classmates in biology and pre-med courses are concerned about health care.